


The First Time Rose Tyler Told The Doctor He Was Beautiful

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gallifrey, Gallifreyan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 15:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12213843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: After the infamous cat scene in Fear Her.The Doctor opens up a bit about his past on Gallifrey.





	The First Time Rose Tyler Told The Doctor He Was Beautiful

‘So, backcombing, eh?’ Rose smirked at him, leaning against the twisting coral beams of the TARDIS.

‘What?’ the Doctor said, startled, his voice coming out higher than expected.

‘You said you were experimenting with backcombing.’

‘When- Oh…’ A pink flush crept across the Doctor’s pale face. ‘When you were talking to the cat. You noticed that?’

She gave him a bemused smile that wasn’t quite a grin. ‘You looked like you were going to cry.’

‘I wasn’t going to cry,’ he lied, remembering the tears that had caught at the back of his throat. It was silly. He knew it was silly. Why did he care so much? None of this was rational. What did it look like from the outside? A clamouring for attention and validation?

‘And then later, you said you had children, yeah? What’d you mean?’

‘I was a parent. Back on Gallifrey, ages and ages ago.’

‘So, in the hospital in London during the Blitz when you said-’

‘Yes.’

Rose watched his expression carefully, her next question dying on her lips, then resurrecting itself as curiosity got the better of her. ‘So does that mean you had-’

The Doctor stared at his hands. ‘I had a wife. It wasn’t… It wasn’t the best situation. I believe the colloquial term is “fiasco.”’

‘What happened?’

‘It was a mistake. I was very young. At the time, Gallifreyans were in the saying that I was a reincarnation of an ancient Time Lord called the Other. My wife knew the Other, millennia earlier. I never knew what conclusion she came to, only that I-’ the Doctor gazed vacantly ahead. It had been so long since he had related this story to anyone. Since anyone had cared enough not to assume they knew the way he felt.

Rose squeezed his hand reassuringly.

‘I wasn’t whatever it was that she needed me to be.’ 

‘That’s hard.’

The Doctor shook his head dismissively. ‘Was a long time ago.’

‘Doctor?’ Rose whispered.

‘Yeah?’

‘You are a beautiful boy.’

‘Thanks.’ His round brown eyes were misty, and he felt almost uncomfortably warm.

‘For a Time Lord.’

‘O’ Course.’


End file.
